`Ecotourism" is one of this year's hottest buzzwords in thetravel industry. All that buzzing - over tourism that aims topromote conservation of the natural world - is certain to beamplified by the much-heralded Earth Day 1990 campaign to mobilize100 million save-the-planet demonstrators on April 22.
An "overwhelming public interest in ecotourism has grown bothdomestically and internationally in the last two years," reports theWorld Wildlife Fund in its recently published study, "Ecotourism: ThePotentials and Pitfalls."
Dozens of tour companies are putting "ecotour" labels on theirprograms to such diverse destinations as Oregon and Costa Rica, theAntarctic and Nepal. Even an airline is getting into theenvironmental act: Virgin Atlantic Airways, which now calls itself"the green airline," is creating a "Virgin Forest" fund to plant atree for each passenger who flies the British carrier from LosAngeles to London starting May 16.
The Exxon Valdez oil spill a year ago in Alaska's Prince WilliamSound spotlighted the impact that manmade disasters can have onscenic wilderness areas beloved by ecotourists. About the same time,the running aground of a passenger-cargo ship in Antarcticaillustrated the threat that careless adventure travel can pose tofragile environments.
Allied with ecotourism, and sometimes overlapping it, is themovement for "responsible tourism," spearheaded by theCalifornia-based Center for Responsible Tourism and espoused byauthor and columnist Arthur Frommer. Its main goal is to amelioratemass tourism's adverse effects on human cultures in the developingworld by espousing "low-impact travel."
As World Wildlife Fund president Kathryn S. Fuller points out inthe foreword to her organization's study, the boom in ecotourismgives cause for concern as well as enthusiasm.
It "can generate badly needed revenue for local and regionaleconomies, heightened local awareness of the importance ofconservation, and new incentives for governments and the dwellers inand around appealing natural areas to preserve them," Fuller writes.
"At the same time, however, the demands placed on ecosystems andnatural resources from increased tourism can destroy the veryattractions that draw people. Developing ecotourism wisely thereforeposes an enormous challenge."
That challenge is evident, for example, on the GalapagosIslands - the unique South American treasure trove of isolated animaland plant species 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador. Revenue fromtourists visiting the Galapagos supports the entire national-parksystem of mainland Ecuador. But the government recently increasedthe annual number of tourist permits to 87,000 - 3 1/2 times theislands' capacity, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
Ideally, ecotourism can fulfill the role described by RichardRyel, president of Alabama-based International Expeditions, as "thebiggest economic success story for developing countries andpotentially a saving grace for the global environment.
"As a result of this blossoming trend in ecotourism," continuesRyel, "countries endowed with great ecological resources arebeginning to recognize the value of their unspoiled habitats.Instead of exploiting natural areas for timber, agriculture, miningand animal products such as ivory and skins, these countries aresetting aside millions of acres in the development of a morelucrative and sustainable economic base rooted in tourism."
But there is reason to be skeptical about claims for theecological or cultural benefits in any kind of travel, based on masstourism's track record of despoiling the natural world from Hawaii'sWaikiki to Spain's Costa del Sol and disrupting Third World societiesfrom Mexico to Borneo.
"Tourism today is an accurate reflection of the state of globalaffairs," asserts "The Challenge of Tourism," a report prepared forthe Ecumenical Coalition on Third World Tourism, an internationalbody related to the Center for Responsible Tourism. "Modern masstourism becomes more and more an environmental menace, whose effectsoften approximate those of extractive industries" such as mining.
Mass tourism in its present forms, concludes a report fromlast fall's "Tourism and Ecology" conference of the Center forResponsible Tourism, "accommodates the defacing of historic sites andthe desecration of sacred sites, strips local fishing villages of theright to use beaches and waters, clutters remote trekking routes withtrash, encourages the illegal slaughter of protected game animals forskins and trophies, introduces Western-style conspicuous consumptionto the youth of `under-developed' countries, and generally serves asa neo-colonial force."
Many in the tourism industry would reject that judgment as tooharsh. But nobody disputes the immense and growing worldwideinfluence of travel - for better or for worse.
There were 400 million international tourist arrivals in 1988,according to "Tourism: The World's Peace Industry," an article byLouis J. D'Amore. Travel revenues rank third (after oil andarmaments) among all export industries, accounting for nearly 6percent of total global exports and 25 percent of international tradein services.
Spending for domestic and international travel totals about $2trillion a year - 10 to 12 percent of the world's gross product.
If travel and tourism were a country, reports The Economistmagazine, its gross national product would rank fifth in the world.The industry's direct contribution to global GNP is estimated at $968billion annually: $516 in employee wages, $286 billion in cashavailable for dividends and investments, $166 billion in taxpayments. Travel accounts for one of every 16 jobs worldwide, andtourism earned poor countries $55 billion in 1988, ranking secondonly to oil as an earner of badly needed hard currency.
As tourism reaches even the remotest regions of the Earth, "TheChallenge of Tourism" points out, "there is little general awarenesson the part of travelers about the impact their visit has" on exoticdestinations.
The heart of the matter, concludes the "Tourism and Ecology"report, is "educating, not only tourists, but also marketers oftourism and those whose roles in government gives them opportunitiesto make a difference. Consumers of tourism need a wide range ofoptions for environmentally aware action."
One kind of option is offered by aware operators such as KurtKutay, president of Wildland Journeys. During a Wildland trek lastyear along Peru's Inca Trail, "several dozen persons in the journeycollected literally tons of debris left by previous hikers. For theparticipants, the experience not only brought considerableimprovement in that environment, but also provided a stark lesson onthe awesome impact of even adventure journeys on remote sites."
Some 6,000 travelers hike the Inca Trail each year, and Kutaysees "some major impacts on the archeological resources, on thenatural environment in Machu Picchu National Park." A major problem,along with the Peruvian government's inadequate management resources,"is just that people who are hiking the trail don't have an adequatebackground and knowledge of low-impact camping. This is a majorissue in the world for adventure-type travel."
Kutay cites Nepal as another place where "nature tourism isreally overrunning fragile environments. Nepal travelers, eventhough they are adventure travelers making that leap into somethingnew, still want to have those comforts like a hot shower. They don'tthink about the fact that this contributes to the deforestation withlocal people going out and harvesting firewood to heat up the water."
Despite such problems, ecotourism does offer great potential asa protector of imperiled environments. "From a conservationstandpoint,"declares the World Wildlife Fund's report, "nature tourism canprovide an economic justification for conservation of areas thatmight not otherwise receive protection. In East Africa, forinstance, preservation of wildlife for tourist viewing has proved asuccessful economic argument for conservation."
Countries such as Costa Rica and Belize are finding thatecotourists spend more than passive beach vacationers - though theportion of that money that stays to benefit the local economy isanother thorny issue. Some tour operators include a contribution toecological projects in the price of the package. Victor EmanuelNature Tours, for example, donated $500 per tourist from one of itstrips to help buy threatened rainforest in Costa Rica.
Responding to mounting criticism from scientific circles aboutthe growth of adventure travel to Antarctica, three major NorthAmerican operators of ship tours to that continent established jointguidelines last fall for safeguarding the South Polar environment.The regulations deal with tourists' conduct around wildlife, properbehavior at research bases, respect of historic relics, andunauthorized removal of keepsakes.
Closer to home, the widening interest in ecotourism is floodingAmerica's national parks with visitors - 340 million last year, whichis double the figure of two decades ago. At Yosemite, Yellowstone,Grand Canyon and other popular parks, notes the World Wildlife Fundstudy, "success can quickly become too much of a good thing."Environmental groups are currently battling tourism interests over aproposal to limit the number of overnight stays in Yosemite.
Paradoxically, as the planet's wilderness continues to shrinkunder population pressures, the interest of American travelers inseeing what's left of that natural world is likely to grow everstronger.
"More and more people, who otherwise would never have taken anadventure trip," says Wildland Journeys' Kutay, "take it because weprovide a sense of safety, security and comfort for these adventuretravelers.
"While it's great that they're making this leap, discoveringsomething about themselves and learning more than they might haveotherwise on a conventional trip," Kutay adds, "there's also anelement of being well-equipped, wearing their Gortex, their camera,their good new hiking boots and all the colorful clothes that we havetoday."
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